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Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley, in a historic upset that is sure to send ripples across the Democratic Party, defeated incumbent Rep. Michael Capuano in Tuesday’s contest for control of Massachusetts’ 7th congressional district, positioning herself to become the first African American woman to join the state’s Washington delegation.

Just after 9 p.m., Caupano publicly conceded the race to Pressley saying "I'm sorry it didn't work out, but this is life. This is okay" Capuano congratulated Pressley on her win telling supporters she'll be a good representative.

Official vote counts have not been tallied.

Pressley, a Boston city councilor-at-large with Chicago roots, launched her campaign earlier this year against Capuano around the phrase “Change Can’t Wait" — though there were few policy differences between her and her opponent. On the campaign trail, Pressley touted the need for "bold" and "activist" leadership in Congress and argued she would be a better representative because she understands the needs facing the state's only majority-minority district.

Capuano, 66, the former mayor of Somerville who was first elected to the House in 1999, faced his first serious challenger in Pressley, 44, who was among a crop of younger insurgent candidates taking on veteran incumbents this primary season. Throughout the campaign, Capuano often touted his ability to bring federal funds back to the district and was poised to play a key leadership role if Democrats won the house in November.

The seventh congressional district stretches through parts of Boston, Cambridge and Milton and includes Somerville, Chelsea and Randolph.

Since no Republican is on the ballot for this race in November, Pressley will almost certainly represent the 7th District in 2019.

I don't know if this is as shocking as the Acasio-Cortez upset, but down goes another white dude incumbent in favor of a younger female POC. Someone on my fb was saying that Capuano's ads were for things he was AGAINST and not things he was FOR. Maybe that and using traditional media is a bad combo if you're an incumbent. Don't take your base for granted.

Monahan, the woman accusing Rep. Keith Ellison of domestic violence, has been calling out Democrats for having a double standard on the #MeToo movement. In a Twitter exchange earlier this week, Monahan said Democrats do not believe her story, adding that she has been “smeared, threatened, isolated” from her own party since coming forward.

Now Monahan has released a medical record from 2017 that documents the physical and emotional abuse she claims to have suffered at the hands of Ellison.

The medical report from Jodi K. Milburn, MD reads in part:

“She states that she was in a very stressful environment for years, emotional and physical abuse by a partner with whom she is now separated. She did not have any physical injuries that required a physical examination in the past. She identifies the individual she was involved with as congressmen [sic] Ellison, and she is worried about retribution if she identifies him publicly.”

One of the House leaders, Henry Hyde, was revealed to have had an extramarital affair of his own. He called it a “youthful indiscretion” because he was, at the time, a mere 41 years old.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich all the while was having an affair with a staffer. (She is now ambassador to the Vatican.) He stepped down as speaker.

His anointed replacement, Robert Livingston, declined the job when it was disclosed that he too had an extramarital affair.

Fortunately for the GOP, they settled on another replacement, who served for eight years. That man, Dennis Hastert, later served time in a federal prison for molesting young boys when he was a wrestling coach.

Independent counsel Ken Starr went on to become president of Baylor University, but had to resign for turning a blind eye to sexual harassment

But at least one of Starr’s young staff attorneys made good. Brett Kavanaugh is likely to become the next justice of the U.S. Supreme Court--unless, that is, someone discovers that he committed sexual assault or witnessed gang rapes while in high school

And in a private act of repentance that has remained private for nearly three decades, he told Raymond Strother that he was sorry for how he had torpedoed Gary Hart’s chances of becoming president.

...

What he wanted to say, according to Strother, was that the episode that had triggered Hart’s withdrawal from the race, which became known as the Monkey Business affair, had been not bad luck but a trap. The sequence of events was confusing at the time and is widely misremembered now. But in brief:

In late March 1987, Hart spent a weekend on a Miami-based yacht called Monkey Business. Two young women joined the boat when it sailed to Bimini. While the boat was docked there, one of the women took a picture of Hart sitting on the pier, with the other, Donna Rice, in his lap. A month after this trip, in early May, the man who had originally invited Hart onto the boat brought the same two women to Washington. The Miami Herald had received a tip about the upcoming visit and was staking out the front of Hart’s house. (A famous profile of Hart by E. J. Dionne in The New York Times Magazine, in which Hart invited the press to “follow me around,” came out after this stakeout—not before, contrary to common belief.) A Herald reporter saw Rice and Hart going into the house through the front door and, not realizing that there was a back door, assumed—when he didn’t see her again—that she had spent the night.

Amid the resulting flap about Hart’s “character” and honesty, he quickly suspended his campaign (within a week), which effectively ended it. Several weeks later came the part of the episode now best remembered: the photo of Hart and Rice together in Bimini, on the cover of the National Enquirer.

...

“I thought there was something fishy about the whole thing from the very beginning,” Strother recalled. “Lee told me that he had set up the whole Monkey Business deal. ‘I did it!’ he told me. ‘I fixed Hart.’ After he called me that time, I thought, My God! It’s true!”

Yeah, I'm not surprised that Atwater was behind that particular act of ratfucking, and neither am I surprised that he confessed it towards the end. He did a lot of that kind of thing before his early demise; hell, he was so into confessing he became a Catholic! Of course, a brain tumor at 39 tends to change one's perspective, but it's anyone's guess as to how sincere he really was. But yeah, if Hart hadn't been crushed, it's interesting to consider how different things might be. Then again, Atwater was gearing up to take down Clinton, and he may just have been able to pull that off. So you just never know.

I let out 3/4 of a breath on election day. I let the last bit out today. I was so nervous something terrible would happen and we'd end up with President Ryan. I mean, I want Trump GONE but it could wait a couple weeks until Nancy was 2nd in line.

Now it's time for Dems to shut up. Stop bickering amongst each other. The GOP is cracking. Let's help it fail. If we fight stupid battles in our own party, we'll go down too.

This is Steve’s complete lack of surprise. As I said, she was being flamed. It was some Bernie superfan dissing Harris for dating Willie Brown twenty years ago when he was mayor of San Francisco. That was when I still lived there, and it was quite the story around town. First, he was separated from, but still married to, his wife. Second, he’s 31 years older than she is. The tweeter said something about how it couldn’t have been about lying he or attraction or whatever, that she did it out of ambition. (There’s the misogyny.) And she linked a story from Free Beacon, a right wing shitsite. So yeah, the same bullshit from Bernieland. And the thing is, we kinda want to win this time.